


Love's Not Time's Fool Part  II Ch.4

by kinfic2



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 00:03:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1530635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinfic2/pseuds/kinfic2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"These are the times that try men's souls."<br/>One year post-513<br/>Introspection</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love's Not Time's Fool Part  II Ch.4

**Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.** R.W. Emerson  
Brian:  
_“A planet of play things. We dance on the strings of powers we cannot perceive.”_ _©Peart,Lee,Lifeson_  
  
I’ve reached the conclusion that I am not in control. Of anything. Maybe my struggle for control has been nothing more than a delusional illusion, and all my adult life I’ve been dangling from a celestial hook, flailing against invisible forces with their own agenda.  
  
Perhaps it had been a losing battle with Justin from the beginning, and I never could have outrun him. Which raises a question. Did I ever want to or did I fool myself into believing I did?  
  
This is where my quest has taken me—teetering on a precipice of choice, peering into a chasm of indecision. Compared to the risk of letting him go, it’s a comfortable place. But the comfortability comes with a hefty price, a plethora of disturbing what-ifs based on an incontrovertible fact. If I want to keep him, I have to move on.  
  
It’s worse than a limp dick to admit it, but the years have slip-sided away. Yeah, the person who stares at me in the mirror every morning still ridicules anyone, friends included, in a stepford-like existence. But when my frequent companion, loneliness, creeps out from the woodwork at night to keep me company, I have to ask, “How am I any better?”  
  
Lifting up one layer of preconceived memory at a time, I’m starting to see the picture more clearly. Justin was right. The wedding was the wrong decision at the wrong time and triggered by an equally wrong series of events. If we had gone ahead, it would have been catastrophic. I can’t even imagine— Fuck! I can’t think about the consequences.  
  
For reasons I can’t fathom, the persistent fucker made it his life’s mission to chip away at the Rock of Kinney one miserable brick at a time, exposing feelings I didn’t know I possessed or was even capable of. The cruel irony is that they revolted with a vengeance. In addition to unbearable pain, they allowed a foreign emotion to percolate. Vulnerability.  
  
Due to dick-headed pride and numerous dysfunctions that would make Alex Wilder a very rich man, I almost lost him. More than once. It hurt. Not only did I hurt myself, I hurt him, too. Time after time, I ripped his heart out, threw it in the gutter, then carelessly tossed it back to him, as if it and, by default, _he_ meant nothing.  
  
I know what he wants from me, what kind of life he wants withme, and I want to give him that life but.... I have doubts if I can live up to his expectations. Even though there’s no rationale to look elsewhere, I can’t promise I won’t scratch the itch. And fucking around would gut him. He’d start to have doubts—worrying that he wasn’t enough, wondering what he was doing wrong—and nothing would be farther from the truth.  
  
I want to keep him. I want to make him happy. But I don’t know if I have the goods.  

 _“You’re out of touch. I’m out of time. And I’m out of my head when you’re not around.” ©_ _Hall/Oates_                          

Justin:  
  
**We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they’re called memories. Some take us forward, they’re called dreams.** J. Irons

  
I won’t lie. I was relieved when we called off the wedding. Although it was a dream come true, it would have been like jumping from the frying pan into the fire, to use another awful cliche from my Mom. But I also grieved the decision. In a way, I still do. I can’t think about it without a sense of mourning. What was hasn’t stopped my imagination from tormenting me with what might have been.   
  
Everyone thinks I look at Brian through a thick pair of rose-tinted glasses, that I’ve never been able to accept the truth about him according to _them,_ that I’ve been deluding myself with false hope. They’re wrong. What we had you can’t fake. There were too many moments that took my breath away, that rocked my soul with their honest honesty. Something so intense leaves a mark and brands you for life.  
  
I wasn’t blinded by love. My vision wasn't distorted by love. In fact, it was just the opposite. Love opened my eyes so I could see more clearly. And this past year, painful as it was, gave me time to grow up, to decide what I want and need, not only from Brian, but also myself.  
  
I’m not going to hold back anymore about how I feel or what I say. It’s too easy to backslide into a dangerous pattern of not talking when every sane thought is clouded by passion and ruled by your dick. That was part of our problem. And although Brian communicates the best and sometimes the only way he knows how—through sex—he’s going to have to learn to talk _._ I’m tired of needing a road map to follow his silences and interpret his nonverbal cues.  
  
We know each other on so many levels, it’s hard to figure out which to discard, which to keep, and which to repair if we’re going to make this work. We both have a lot of emotional baggage and Brian’s isn’t your everyday kind of baggage.  
  
But despite my resolve, I still have to play this carefully. I’m dealing with a psyche that doesn’t work like normal people. The man can ruthlessly flay and slay in business without blinking but back him into a corner with emotion and he overloads with abort messages.  
  
I won’t let him torpedo us by sabotaging himself. I have to make him see what I see—an inherent kindness that he can’t hide, no matter how hard he tries. That’s the Brian Kinney I fell in love with. The big challenge is to make him see he’s worthy of that love.

  
_“I’ll stand by you. Won’t let nobody hurt you. I’ll stand by you.”_ _©Steinberg,Kelly,Hynde_

 

 **Continue here:** <http://archiveofourown.org/works/2468834>


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